Call My Name Or Walk On By
by penwhiz24
Summary: Picking up right after John Bender pumps his fist into the air in triumph, this story explores the immediate aftermath of the events of the movie and how Bender, Claire, Andrew, Allison, and Brian struggle to reconcile that life-changing morning with the rest of the world that seems to be telling them they're wrong.
1. John Bender's Epiphany

John Bender walks across the football stadium with a sense of purpose not seen in the likes of anyone but soldiers returning from a victory. His tweed trench coat billows around him like a cape. His finger tips are beginning to freeze on his walk home because the finger-less leather gloves don't take them into account. No matter. Today is the first day of the rest of his life.

"Fuck you, dad," he mutters under his breath, " _Fuck you._ And fuck you, too, Mr. Dick Vernon. See you next week in your shitty detention. Right now, I gotta girl to call."

It isn't fair that she couldn't have stayed with him. They could have walked around in the cold winter air together. That way they wouldn't jinx it. That moment where her mouth had been on his and he'd found himself leaning in instead of pulling back. What a funny thing.

Instead he walks the streets of Shermer Illinois like a god. He doesn't kick stray cans or slam his fist on mailboxes to see how many he can dent. He rocks his shades with a new appreciation for the first time in a long time for being alive.

His heart is pumping blood. His lungs are breathing and processing air. He's got eight more weeks of detention in his near future but he couldn't give less of a shit because they are all humans and it is fucking beautiful.

He slams the screen door to his house. On a normal day he wouldn't dare. Dad doesn't take nicely to being woken. But today is not a normal day. Today is what brains in the philosophy class like to call an epiphany day. At least, he thinks that's what they call it. Regardless, today is the day that John Bender realizes he has been going about it all wrong. It is on this chilly March Saturday that he realized people are the same and that there may be a single girl out there for him after all.

 _We philosophers like to call this a motherfucking epiphany._

Inside, Bender is surprised to find the dingy living room father-less.

"Shit, what kinda karma am I gonna have to pay for a day this _good_?" He mumbles to himself as he kicks off his ratty boots and tosses the coat onto the maroon velvet couch.

He eats some left over Chinese food from the fridge before getting to it. It's his father's left overs. The bastard is so paranoid that he labels all of his food. Serves him right. It's too bad that Bender won't be there to see the look on his old Pop's face when he realizes someone ate his left-overs. There's only the two of them that live in this house so it'll hardly take Sherlock Holmes to put two and two together.

Once he's done, he starts his mission. It takes Bender a while to find the school directory. It's lucky he didn't laugh about it with his friends the moment he got it and rip it to shreds after they'd finished prank calling all the freshmen with terrible family emergencies. Prank Calls. What a fucking child. Everything in the past seems so stupid now.

He finds the directory finally at the bottom of a stack of _Daily News_ papers. It has a large coffee stain and a bite-marked chunk missing on the side. Hopefully it doesn't mean that the number's gone...

"Did you do this, you stupid cat?" He scolds the gray feline that has ambled into the room. The cat blinks at him with amber eyes unphased, "It better still be here or you'll get it good..."

 _The S's... flip to the S's._

Smith, Sneider, Sordo...

Her name is there. In black and while, on a pristine, never-looked at portion of the school directory.

 _Claire Standish._

Bender's hand floats up to caress the gemstone in his ear. He can almost still feel impossibly soft finger placing the earring gently in his palm as if it was a delicate and intricate diamond made out of glass. The slight glance in the direction of her father to make sure he was adequately horrified. Her deep eyes on his. This is the first gift he has ever received which he did not have to work for. And yet, debatable, the hardest he ever worked was in trying to convince her he was something else. But she'd seen right through him.

Most guys would worry that this is too early to call. After all, he just saw her twenty minutes ago, grinning back at him with that freckled smile, delighted at the look of death on her father's face. Serves him right. Fucking tool.

But John Bender had never been known to think anything through in his life.

 _Thinking is for rocket scientists and drug dealers. And at the moment, I'm not a member of either party._

Besides, John Bender is not most guys. In that respect, he resembles the great narcissists of old: Nero and Napoleon. Guys that were so full of themselves they never considered failure as an option.

So he picks up the phone and dials. One ring. Two rings. Three rings. Just enough to convert him into thinking this is a bad idea before a woman picks up.

"Hello?"

"Uh, hi."

The only thing Bender remembers that his mom ever taught him was that you should always introduce yourself on the phone. But he knows full well that he's here to serve a very different purpose. He's here to be the boy you'd never take home to mom and dad.

"I wanna speak to Claire. Is she home?"

There's a long pause where Bender has time to feel rather pleased with his work. Today has been a good day in the verbal sparring department, too. That Barry Manilow line was fucking genius.

"Don't you know that it's impolite not to introduce one's self over the phone, young man? Who is this speaking?"

"John Bender, and who are you, lady?"

"I beg your _pardon?_ "

"Claire. Put her on the phone please."

"The nerve!"

"Listen, m'am, I'm not lookin' to start something. I just wanna talk to Claire."

He is beginning to get annoyed now. The stupid cat won't stop staring at him and then flicking his yellow orbs back to his dusty food bowl. He can't remember where he put the weed he got back from that brainiac kid. He thinks he hears someone coming up the drive and now why the _fuck_ is this lady ruining his day?

There's another long pause where he hears voices in the background. It's hard to pick up anything definitive except for one phrase.

 _"No way you're speaking to him."_

"She is not home at the moment. Besides, she is grounded so don't try to call back here. Goodbye."

Click. Beep.

The bitch hung up on him.

There's the sound of drunk stumbling outside as Bender hang the phone back up. He runs up to his room to change and freshen up before his dad can say anything.

Bender looks at his long shaggy hair in the mirror. Is that a white streak growing in? Must be all the stress. Life is stressful when you've got a maniac for a father and no shits left to give about staying alive.

The gray streak looks kind of bad-ass, Bender decides. It looks good with his new earring. That makes him smile as he pulls on his most tattered and shredded pair of jeans and heavy metal shirt.

When he looks at himself in the mirror again, he either looks like the kid that dies first in a zombie movie or a mother's son-in-law in a nightmare.

Perfect.

It's time to crash some rich motherfuckers' family dinner.


	2. Andrew Takes A Stand

"Hey Stubbies, how's it going man? Not too bad, not too bad. Oh yeah, it was a total bore but what can you expect? Listen, there's been a slight change of plans. No, exactly, that's what I wanted to tell you about. I'm gonna bring another girl instead of Claire Standish, is that cool? Great. See you over there at 9:30. I won't forget the beers, no worries. Thanks man. See you later. Bye."

Andrew hangs up the phone with a huge grin on his face. He can't be expected to wait until Monday. If he's ever going to go through with this thing it has to be _now_.

He tosses the blue Nike tank top aside for the meet next Saturday. He doesn't have to think about it until then. No more training. No more watching what he eats. From now on, he is going to _enjoy_ himself and if the wrestling thing starts to get in the way of him being happy well then maybe he should end it altogether...

"Remember what we talked about," his father had told him in the car, choosing to ignore the kiss with Allison, "You can't get caught again."

"Yessir."

He throws on a white t-shirt and different jeans and different sneakers. This is the craziest thing he's ever done. One pair of dark eyes, a white headband pushing her hair back, a little makeup and he had been done for. It had all come at him out of the blue, like the kind of asteroid that even astrophysicists like Brian Johnson can't predict.

All he can think about is something John Bender said. John _fucking_ Bender. The burnout, the non-existent piece of shit that he had said may as well disappear from the school and never be heard from again.

 _The world's an imperfect place_.

But not today.

Because today, Andrew doesn't have to go to the gym and train. He doesn't have to watch what he eats lest he go over his weight limit and not be able to wrestle. Hell, he doesn't even have to feel like the biggest scum-bag on the planet for what he did to another human being, partly because he knows he will never do something as bad as burn his own son with a cigar and partly because he knows that on Monday he will make amends.

Claire said nothing would change on Monday but it will now. He had seen the look on her face at the end. She was as determined at he to make it all work. Something had changed. The battle had been won and now it was a matter of settling back into peacetime embracing the change that had been hard fought for.

And he couldn't let Allison go. Not now that he had finally opened his eyes to how bright the world could be. Like the flash of the asteroid right before it smashes all the dinosaurs into smithereens. They must have seen the world for how it really was for a few seconds, right before it all went to shit.

Well he was going to enjoy those few seconds.

"Bye, dad, I'm going out."  
He had hoped to be able to walk on by without having to have the umpteenth conversation about his behavior.

"Now, wait just a minute, son."

Andrew sighs but sits down at the table across from his parents who are looking at him with that mixture of concern and disappointment that he wishes he could just smash off both of their faces.

"Your father and I are okay with you going to this party," his mother begins in her soft chirp, "But we just want to hear it from you again that you know how grave this was and that it'll never happen again."

"This was a very grave thing I did and it'll never happen again," he recites back in a monotone, "Can I go now? I'm almost late."

"Sure, sport. Go have fun," his dad winks at him.

 _Make out with some girls. Drink. Smoke some weed. Get fucked up. Just not enough to lose your scholarship or else you're no longer my son. Have fun! And don't do anything I wouldn't do._

That was the implication.

"Andrew, don't you feel any remorse?"

He looks up at his mother's face. When she'd yelled at him earlier, he had barely listened. Who cared about a nerd kid who'd had to go to a hospital? It was his scholarship that mattered and his reputation and the fact that he'd have to spend an entire day stuck in a room doing _nothing_ instead of going to the gym and working out and getting ready. But now he heard in her words something different. She was asking him on a human level.

Huh. He hadn't even known that there _was_ a human level to be found before today.

"I do mom. I really do. On Monday I'll make things right. I will."

"Now wait a minute," his father begins. His voice is less like a bird and more like a steamroller, "Don't go around giving stupid apologies that get you more in trouble than you already are. You gotta tread lightly with this kind of thing, you understand? There are lawsuits that could happen and reporters stirring up more trouble. Nobody wants that. You hear?"

"Yessir."

"Good. Don't go talkin' about anything until we have the all clear."

"Yessir."

 _No fucking way I'm gonna stay quiet about this and let the remorse eat me up from the inside out._

That was the implication.

Andrew walks out the door without another word to either of them.

His dad lets him have the car so he drives to Allison's house. He knows where she lives. That little note that she gave him when they'd kissed and she'd taken his wrestling patch. _Come and find me_. That was her implication.

It doesn't take him long to find it. Her house. A middle-class stereotype if he ever saw one complete with white picket fence, two cars in the driveway, and a tire swing in the front yard. He tries to imagine a young Allison scowling at her parents as they force her to swing back and forth on that very same tire swing. The thought makes him smile.

What should he do now? Should he just go up the door and knock? What if her parents answer? What would he say?

For a second, the old cowardice comes back and he considers turning around and going to the party alone.

 _No. You have to do it now._

Like a soldier abandoning his tank for the insecurity of enemy ground beneath his sneakers, he steps out of the car. And marches forward. Closer and closer to the bronze knocker on the tacky red door. His finger sticks out to ring the doorbell and he hears it go off. One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. Three Mississippi.

The door opens but only a crack.

"Hi," half of Allison's face peaks out at him with those huge brown eyes.

"Hey," relief floods his body that it is her and not her parents.

"You're early," she says with the wicked grin he'd found himself drawn to all day, "I wasn't expecting you for another ten years."

"Why would you say that?"

"That's just how the world works."

He stares at her, trying desperately to figure her out.

"Are you gonna let me in?"

"It depends. What are you doing here?"

He takes a deep breath before speaking.

"Well, there's this big party happening at Stubbies. His parents are in Europe and, uh, yeah. It's supposed to be pretty wild."

"So I've heard," her eyes darken slightly, "I don't go to parties."

This catches him a bit by surprise. Even just a day ago, the thought of him inviting someone like Allison to accompany him to a Stubbies party would have been ludicrous, unthinkable. A fiction. And yet here she was, with the unthinkable having transpired, giving him a hard time.

 _God, she's perfect._

"I couldn't wait," he explains.

"Wait for what?"

"Until Monday. It has to happen now."

"Me meeting all your little friends," Allison smiles with her crazy eyes and opens the door. She's back to wearing a lumpy black sweater, black sweatpants, and heavy black socks. This is the real Allison. He can embrace it. "Come inside while I change."

"What about your parents?"

"That's the nice thing about having parents that disappear," she says, "Is that it's as if they were dead and I can do whatever I want."

Andrew grins and walks inside.


	3. Claire Wants To Start A Revolution

John Bender was like a natural disaster. He was like a tornado and a hurricane and a hail storm and a blizzard and a heat wave all rolled into one ball of denim-wearing, chain-smoking trouble. And he was the sexiest boy Claire had ever seen in her life.

When she'd pulled away from him reluctantly, she had held his gaze for as long as possible even as her father drove her away from him. She saw him put the earring in and smiled. Then there was her father to deal with.

"Who is this boy? Claire, answer me right now."

"He's a boy I met in detention, daddy. We don't know each other that well."

"Well, it looked like you knew the inside of his mouth more than anything right there!" her dad scowls at the steering wheel.

"Ew, daddy!"

"Your mother's not gonna like this. That's all I'm going to say about it."

The rest of the car ride transpires in silence but Claire can almost hear the wheels turning in his brain, setting her and Bender's plan in motion. If her mother wasn't going to like this boy on the principal of him being a burned out criminal junkie, then maybe Mr. Standish should make it a point to support his candidacy as Claire's boyfriend one hundred percent...

Here begins the revolution.

Claire had been tired for a long time. She was tired of her friends always telling her what to do. She was tired of her parents constantly fighting over her. She was tired of the threats of divorce. She was tired of her brother not visiting her more often. She was tired of having to do her makeup and hair every day in the same way and she was tired of wearing the same kinds of clothes day in and day out.

She was tired of eating sushi.

Today is the day she has been waiting for. The day where she can stop being tired and start to shake things up.

Part of Claire had always wanted to be a rebel. All it took, as it turned out, was a run-in with a rebel to trigger that part of herself.

It felt damn good.

"So are you going out with this boy today?" her father asks as they dismount from the BMW in front of their McMansion suburban house.

Bingo.

"I don't know. Mom said I was grounded."  
"Oh, sweetie, c'mon. Don't mind that old drag. You're young. You should enjoy your Saturday evening."

Double Bingo.

"Although, really, he didn't seem like a nice guy, Claire. You have to be careful with those rebel types. They only want one thing, you know. And the torn-up jeans and the scruffy boots, what's attractive about that? In my day, boys used to wear collared shirts and trousers..."

Claire smiles sweetly at her gullible father as they make their way inside. Bender would be so proud of her. She's being converted into a stellar agent of chaos.

 _Well done, Cherry._

She finds her mother in the kitchen pouring herself her pre-dinner Bailey's. She turns around when she hears Claire come in and fixes her with blank, penciled eyes for a moment before something brings her back into focus.

"Claire, dear. Martha's almost ready with dinner."

Having no actual plans, Claire is forced to comply.

Dinner at the Standish house is always a painful endeavor stopping one step short of throwing plates at the wall but always pushing the limits of what can be considered severe passive aggressive abuse. Claire hates family dinners. Indeed, if it were up to her she would take no part in them. She would rather take her car and go shopping by herself rather than try to constantly diffuse the situations that her parents seemed to love to put her in. No more. From now on, she would be the one striking the match instead of putting out the fuse.

She sits down at the dinner table in her usual spot. In the middle of the table, of course, as her parents sit opposite each other at the heads of the table.

How symbolic.

"I'm sorry to hear you had to spend your entire day trapped in some horrid room," her mother begins, dishing herself some salad, "What a waste of time. This is why you need to stay in school, dear. You have plenty of time to go shopping. There's no need to go in the middle of the day."

Claire knows this. She also knows that the real reason she had cut class in the first place was because her new friend, Sarah, had asked her to bring in her white Ralph Lauren scarf for a wedding she was going to. Claire had looked everywhere for the damn scarf but hadn't been able to find it. The solution? She had to go get one exactly like it.

Why not tell Sarah that you couldn't find the scarf and have it done with, you might ask.

Sarah was the most popular girl in school and her approval could make or break a person's social status. So there was only one solution – go to the store before the end of the day and give Sarah the scarf lest she risk majorly losing face. Claire's big mistake had been in getting caught.

"I know, mom."

"Come on, Mildred, the girl is seventeen years old," her father smiled at her, sickly-sweet, "We can trust her."

"Obviously we can't, Harold, if our little girl is getting herself sent to detention," her mom retorts, the bitterness dripping from her mouth.

"It was that damn principal that overreacted. Wasn't it, sweetheart?"

"Don't you dare do this to me, Harold."

"Do what?"

"You know what!" her eyes grow wide and glassy and her face turns red like it always does when she's trying to summon up some tears for dramatic effect, "You always paint me out to be the bad guy. Well, somebody needs to the disciplining in this house and if the father isn't up to the job than I guess I just have to step in, don't I?"

"I discipline her plenty, Mildred, don't you dare make it seem like I don't."

"Claire, what do _you_ think? Does your father discipline you?"

Both of their heads turn in perfect sync to look her in the eyeballs. Her hands begin to shake out of habit. She hates this most of all. When they make her pick sides with excuses of _We just value your side of things, sweetie_ and _We won't take it personally_ and then when she actually gives them her honest opinion she finds herself ignored by her mother and then her father for days because they're both so fucking sensitive...

"Uh..."

But Claire doesn't have to think of a diplomatic answer this time because that's when the doorbell rings.

"Who could that be? Martha! Could you get the door, please?"

Claire watches the Standish maid and cook, Martha, march over to the door with a heavy sigh. Honestly, Claire can't for the life of her understand why Martha is still with them. If Claire had the option of getting the hell out of there, she would've done it a long time ago.

 _I guess it's hard to give up comfortable things._

As soon as the door clicks open, Claire recognizes his voice immediately coming from down the hall. It's low and snarky and it brings an involuntary smile to her face.

"Hello. Are you Mrs. Standish?"

"No, Mrs. Standish is inside."

"Oh perfect. I called earlier about speaking with Claire and since she said Claire was grounded I figured I would mosey on over here regardless and check out the old Standish family estate. Not to shabby for a couple of washed up lawyers, am I right?"

Claire hears Martha stammering even over her mother's outrage.

"Why the nerve!"

Mrs. Standish takes the napkin from her lap and violently throws it down at the table before marching toward the door. Claire and Mr. Standish's chairs screech loudly at the same time as they both follow Mrs. Standish.

There in the doorway, barely held back by a terrified-looking Martha stands John Bender in all his disheveled bad-boy glory.

Claire thinks back to the moment where she had kissed his scruffy neck in the closet Vernon had put him in. That look of shock in his eyes as he asked her why she'd done that. _Because I knew you wouldn't._

He winks at her from the doorway.

For now they must keep it a secret. That he is much more of a gentleman than he would ever let on.

 _I gotta protect my image, Princess._

"Excuse me, sweetheart," Bender purses his lips as he pushes Martha's hand aside like it is made of butter, "Mrs. Standish? We spoke over the phone. John Bender here, reporting for duty."

"Nice to meet you, formally, John."

Claire's father sticks out his hand and Bender shakes it. Claire has to fight hard not to laugh at the shock in Bender's face.

"Harold!" Mrs. Standish squeals, "You don't mean to say you knew about this?"

"Mildred, come on. They're young..."

"This is no excuse!" Mrs. Standish's voice reaches a new level of screechiness, "I would like you to leave now, if you please. John."

"Now, I'm afraid I can't do that," John makes a show of unwrapping the scarf from his neck before strolling into the living room, "This is nice, yeah. Real nice, just like I predicted. It's a little Addams Family, though, don't you think? I mean, I'm not judging, if you like to live in a coffin. It's more convenient, really, cause when you die they can just roll you on over to your grave and tuck you in pro-bono. What's the matter, Mrs. Standish, never seen a man with an earring before?"

Claire isn't exactly sure what the hell Bender is talking about but the look on her mother and father's face is brilliant.

"You don't mind if I smoke in here?"

"The nerve!"

"I'd really rather you not," her father adds.

"Oh hi there, Cherry. You ready to get going?" Bender raises his eyebrows at her with that devilish grin.

Claire nods, "I just have to get my coat."

It's like they're in a fucking improvisation scene.

"Now wait just a moment! You may certainly _not_ leave, Claire!" Her mother yells, "And you, young man, had better get going if you know what's good for you."

"You gonna make me?"

"The cops certainly will."  
Bender holds up his hand in a sign of defeat, "I can tell when I'm not wanted."  
He starts to walk away, then turns back and winks at Claire.

"I'll call you!" she says, the grin spreading across her face involuntarily.

"I'll be waiting by the phone."

"Get out!"

Bender pauses then shakes his hair back. The earring Claire gave him winks at her. Then he cocks the collar of his trench coat, pumps his gloved fist into the air, and struts out into the brisk night air. Behind him, he leaves rubble, uprooted trees, and two very shocked adults.

Mr. and Mrs. Standish turn to face their daughter with matching horrified looks.

Bingo.


	4. Allison Is Not Alone

Allison is used to being alone. She is an only child. Her parents are both only children. This means she has no uncles, aunts, or cousins. And up until that morning, she had no real friends except for the lies she told.

It's funny how a lie can start to feel real and begin to fill voids in one's life. You don't have any friends to invite to a birthday party? Tell them you don't want a party anyway. You drink because nobody understands you? Tell them it was Satan that compelled you to do it. In many ways, a lie is like a friend with all of the perks and none of the down sides. It gives you companionship and understanding but none of those real human complexities like mood swings and differences of opinions.

Humans are messy creatures and up until very recently, Allison had made up her mind that it was easier to do everything in her power to drive them away.

Besides, she is good at driving people away. .

Yes, Allison is used to being alone. Day in and day out she would sit at the back of her classroom where her teachers thought she was fucking stupid or lazy because she never spoke a single word, and spent her time doodling. Ridiculously. Talking caterpillars and cartoon bottles with eyes telling babies to drink up.

On her report cards, whose results were spectacularly mediocre, the comments are always the same.

 _Does not participate in class._

 _Needs to speak up more._

 _Poor verbal communication skills._

Communication. What a fucking joke. Communication is just a word people like to use for the futile attempt to translate the indescribable so that another totally different living creature can understand you. It's an impossible feat.

That morning she hadn't meant to speak to any of them at all. Her mother seemed to care about Allison only enough to tell her to get out of the house and Detention was the only way Allison could think of to do that besides wander around Shermer alone. Then he'd started asking her questions and she'd found herself talking to him. And now, the next thing she knew, he was sitting in her empty living room, very out of place in his sweatshirt and grass-stained Adidas sneakers amid the spotless furniture.

"Nice place," Andy tries and fails to make it sound convincing.

"You don't have to lie. It's cold, like a hospital."

"No, I mean, it's very..." he clears his throat and shifts uncomfortably, "Clean."

"Thanks."

She makes him wait downstairs as she goes upstairs to change. What does a normal teenager wear to a party? This would've been a good time for Claire to give her a second part to the makeover she had started. It still feels strange having the bangs away from her face. She feels more exposed than ever.

It feels good.

She eventually goes with the only semi-normal item of clothing in her closet: a sleeveless purple dress with black tights underneath and her converse sneakers.

When she walks down she knows by the look on Andy's face, that stupid dopey grin that makes him look slightly bowled over, but adorable nevertheless, sells her on the fact that this was a good call.

"Ready?"

"Yes."

As ready as she'll ever be.  
She climbs into his car and they drive in silence. A strange feeling of comfort exudes between them which is funny given the fact that they had never spoken to each other before just sixteen hours previously.

They pull into the driveway very quickly. Stubbies' house is big, much bigger than Allison's. They have a long driveway and a meticulously manicured lawn framed by pretty little rocks that shine the moonlight back at them. Lights emanate from every window as well as a heavy bass line that reverberates deep in Allison's throat.

"Well here we are. Here, hang on to these," Andy places two six packs of beer in her lap as he grabs his letterman jacket from the back.

"That reminds me," she digs into her purse and pulls out a handle of Vodka. It was the one she'd gotten the old man that always hung out on the corner of the street to buy for her. $15 well spent. It's nice. Raspberry-flavored.

She gives him a devilish grin.

"You weren't lying about the vodka."

"Not entirely."

Andy takes her hand as they go inside. It turns out that high school parties are pretty gross and overall not fun.

Allison blinks a couple time to get her eyes adjusted to the light. The pounding music of cheesy boy bands starts to creep into her head like a bad nightmare. Countless couples are making out in darkened corners of Stubbies' impressive foyer, in the living room, on the stairs, pouring themselves sloppy drinks in the kitchen and pressing each other close when they dance together in the basement.

"Dude, you made it!" Stubbies stumbles over to give Andy a drunk hug barely ten minutes into the party, "Lemme show you where to put the booze, man. We have it all put together in the kitchen, DIY, pour your own drinks type style... recipe for a hangover 'mIright?"

They deposit the six packs and the handle in the kitchen, having to skirt awkwardly by two lip-locked teens. They're popular kids. School color-wearing and hair-straightening. The types of people Allison alternately loathes and finds herself bored by. And now she's at a party with one of them.

Ain't life funny.

"So who's the girl?" Stubbies asks, pouring himself coke and then splashing in some of Allison's vodka.

"This is Allison."

The moment of truth. Allison's heart would be pounding if she actually cared what these people thought. But she can tell Andy cares and is very nervous. He grabs her hand and gulps a couple of times. Someone get the man a drink...

"Cool. Nice to meet you Allison. Like I said, it's chill. And dude," he turns back to face Andy like he's suddenly forgotten Allison is there at all, "Nice job dumping the Claire girl for this chick. She rocks."  
Allison finds herself smiling. Maniacally, perhaps.

They leave the party early because, really, it's not at all Allison's scene and even Andy seems bored by the whole affair. He drives her home with a look of total bliss on his face and she knows what it means. She knows the look of someone who has had a tremendous weight lifted off of their shoulders.

He kisses her goodnight and whispers into her dark hair, "I can't wait for Monday."

As she watches the taillights of his car fade into the distance one resounding thought strikes her in that empty driveway.

 _I am not alone_.


	5. Brian's Masterpiece

Brian can't remember ever feeling quite this way before. Like he's riding on a high. His crowd never does drugs. The closest thing he compare it to is the one time the dentist gave him laughing gas before drilling his tooth to remove a cavity.

The word 'masterpiece', in Brian's opinion, gets thrown around a lot. Everything is a masterpiece just like everyone is a winner. Even the losers. What else are certificates of participation for? People are quick to give compliments with empty words like 'amazing', 'awesome' and 'great' to pure mediocrities.

But this. This is different.

With a stroke of inspiration coming from some far inscrutable place in his brain, he had somehow managed to sum up all of the difficulties and complexities of being labeled a princess, an athlete, a basket case, a brain, and a criminal in one perfectly succinct, expertly worded letter. He had commented on stereotypes and how they dehumanize people. He had commented on first impressions and the impressions of adults in his generation. He had made real social commentary. This is by far his best work. It even crosses, he would dare to admit, over from purely academic work into the realm of the A-word.

No, not ass. Art.

He is cautious of that word. Artists are supposed to wear paint-stained pants and talk in cheesy metaphors. They're not supposed to study physics and eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with the crusts cut off.

And yet, as soon as Brian steps into his room after getting back from a day of detention, his fingers, like magnets, cling onto a notebook and a pen. He lays down on his bed with the paper in front of him and begins to write.

As the words flow seamlessly from his chewed-up pen, he begins to envision himself twenty, twenty-five years in the future. Brian likes to think about his future _a lot_. He would be wearing sweater vests and sipping wine, surely, as an interviewer introduces him as "The next Ray Bradbury – but even better" and calls his third number one best-selling novel "an astounding feat comparable only to _War and Peace_ ".

Yes, that would be his dream for the future. He would look suave and not at all awkward and the braces would be off and his teeth would be perfect, making it worth the sacrifice just like his mother always told him. And he would be a famous author.

Brian keeps writing all through the night until the sky begins to turn pink and his eyes burn so much that he considers the likely possibility that they have melted into his sockets. He goes to sleep with an entire novel fully plotted.

Sunday wakes him with an idea that sleep has cemented as pure fact in his brain. When he grows up, he is going to become a writer.

"Hey, mom," he begins to broach the subject carefully and subtly during the Johnson's customary Sunday brunch, "My friend, Jimmy," – designated scapegoat for all things anti-mom: from questions about girls to the reason for his current failure in shop class – "Well, his parents didn't go to college, see, so, yeah, he's basically just looking to find a good list of colleges right now. He is going to major in English or writing or something like that, I think, so I – we – that's to say Jimmy and me – we thought we'd ask you. What are, like, really good colleges for studying that?"

Brian's mom was and is still an admissions person at Northwestern University so, needless to say, college was never an option for Brian growing up so much as it was a mandatory, pre-ordained fact of life. He would go to an excellent college, ivy league if he could muster it and not choke, and major in something practical and lucrative.

"You know how many kids I see coming out of college with some questionably legitimate liberal arts degree struggling to find a decent job when they figure out that scrap of paper they call a diploma is practically worthless?"

This was Mama Johnson's favorite scare tactic on her son. And though Brian never had much of an answer to these rhetorical questions, the result was that it had been drilled into his head by both his mother and his father (who is a bio statistician) that he was a math a science guy. He was definitely not a singing or dancing or painting or writing guy. Hell, his parents had even forced him to work on memorizing his multiplication tables in kindergarten and had expressly forbidden him from finger painting with the other kids.

"English? He could go pretty much anywhere with something that generic, I guess, what do you think, dear?"

Mr. Johnson mumbles a reply.

That's when Brian's little sister Susan starts throwing a tantrum.

"But I don't like it, I don't like it, I DON'T LIKE IT!"

While Mr. and Mrs. Johnson try to coax Susan back into seeing zucchini as her friends rather than her enemies, Brian has time to think. Of course they would never pay for him to get a liberal arts degree. He knows that but there's got to be a solution.

In many ways, the elephant lamp debacle was the first chink that showed in his armor as the knight in shining armor of science and math. He'd always thought of himself as a not-yet-bloomed genius. Like Einstein who teachers were always fond of pointing out had failed sixth grade math. But Brian is a whole different case. He couldn't even get a fucking lightbulb to turn on, how is he supposed to go and be successful in a field where Thomas Edison had _created_ the lightbulb from scratch. He couldn't even get it to turn on. _John Bender_ could get his lightbulb to turn on.

At the time Brian had wondered what was wrong with him. That he had failed so spectacularly at something so basic and mundane.

But now he knows.

It is time to move things in another direction.

He goes to sleep on Sunday night thinking about his new friends. John Bender, Claire Standish, Andy Clark, and Allison Reynolds. They had called him the smartest even if it had not been true. He had acted like a total nerd, which he was proud of being, and they had accepted him on that Saturday. He knows he will not be the one initiating a conversation tomorrow. He dares them to prove Claire right.

Tomorrow he has a physics club meeting. On Tuesday, the writer's workshop meets after school. As he lays asleep in bed, Brian's eyes fly open and he gets up to put his notebook in his backpack before he forgets. He can't think of a time before that Saturday where he would have ever written anything outside of academia, much less considered showing it to other living humans.

This is the power of The Breakfast Club.

The Breakfast Club. He coined that. Nobody could take it from him.

The Breakfast Club.

A masterpiece.


	6. John Bender Goes To Battle

All he ever wanted was to be treated with basic fucking respect but nobody ever seemed to listen. As his father falls deeper and deeper into his bottle, every goddamn night, the spiteful words tumble out of him with a steady stream, like piss.

 _"No good son-of-a-bitch. Only a fucking deadbeat bum like you could've driven your mother away. What if she never comes back? Huh? Then tell me how you fucking feel then!"_

Never mind that he hits her. That he calls her a bitch every single day. That he respects his car, his dead-beat job, his fucking _whiskey_ bottle more than his wife and son.

It's been two weeks since she last called to tell them she wasn't coming back yet. Good riddance. She never stood up to him. Not even when John was a little kid with a scraped knee and a bent bicycle wheel and then red marks down his back. He'd tried to stand up for _her_ and had gotten it much worse. Never so much as a fucking thank you card.

Good riddance.

So instead of respect, he picked fights. With everyone that crossed his line of vision starting first and foremost with the centerpiece: his father.

 _"What about you, dad?"  
_ Like a play, every day, he would perform his fateful line and pull his father's trigger.

 _"Shut up, you lying, no good, fucking disappointment."_

 _"No, dad. What about you? You're a bum like me. You don't got a real job and you drink to pass the fucking day, what kind of shit role model are you supposed to be?"_

 _"Shut up!"_

 _"But what about you?"_

 _"Shut you_ _ **fucking**_ _mouth!"_

 _"No, DAD. What about YOU?"_

BAM.

Knuckle to jaw to ribs. Crack. Warm blood drip-dropping. Body rattling, noisy, like an old shaken fence.

Sometimes he would grab his dad's shoulders and fight back but John was crap at fighting, Andy had shown him that, and his father had never paid for fucking karate lessons to arm his own son, and, besides, his old man was strong and armed with a cigar.

 _"FUCK YOU!"_

John would scream at his father until his throat seemed to be ripping open inside. So loud that if this was a movie or they didn't live in he fucking middle of nowhere someone might hear him. Then he would clean the blood off and ice the ribs and play music. He'd smoke a joint until it lulled him into a painful sleep.

It's surprisingly easy to keep up a bad-boy image when you receive the necessary amounts of black eyes at home.

He goes to sleep on Sunday night tending to fresh bruises. He'd looked at his own face in the mirror, cracked red blood congealing under his nose and on his shirt (the old man had socked him good this time) and thought how out of place the shiny earring looked. Almost like it shouldn't be a part of his face at all. Like Claire Standish being a part of his life in any way.

Shit. Like a diamond in his fucking ear. But he keeps it because it's the only thing he owns that's shiny and new.

The next morning the swelling has subsided considerably and with a clean shirt and his black leather gloves that make him feel like a bad-ass, he feels like a whole new John Bender. He's ready to tackle the worst of it all.

School.

His palms are sweaty going into the school. Fuck that. Nothing has changed. The school still looks the same, feels the same, _smells_ the same – like teen sweat and piss and fruity body sprays. And it's not like any of the student body has changed. The rich pricks still sit with the spoiled bitches and the retarded jocks still sit with the dumb blonds. It's the way of the world. Simple biology, really.

But they _have_ changed. Him and Brian Johnson and Andy Clark and Allison Reynolds and Claire Standish.

Especially Claire.

She _has_ to have changed. He refuses to consider the alternative.

He throws the smoking cigarette butt to the ground and crushes it under his worn combat boot. It's time for battle. He fixes the collar on his trench coat and places the shades on his nose even though the day is looking stormy and morose rather than sunny like Saturday.

This is his war gear.

Then he walks up to the front entrance and positions himself against the red brick wall. This is a location chiefly held by popular girls waiting for their tool boyfriends and nerds on the lookout for other nerds. It really isn't a spot for junkie burnouts. This explains the numerous darting glances and confused looks cast in his direction by said student body. He doesn't care. Let them stare. He loves the look of terror when he locks eyes with them. He incinerates them all with a well-placed glare.

This, he recalls, is why he loves the image he has painstakingly cultivated. Inspiring fear in others makes him feel powerful and worth something. This is learned behavior. Learned behavior courtesy of his old man, of course.

The greatest scumbag of them all.

He finally spots one of them from across the parking lot. He's weighed down by several books and he walks with the disjointed awkwardness of a baby horse.

Brian Johnson.

Brian had been the one, the one to challenge them all. He had challenged them to change. And as he comes nearer to John Bender, locking eyes with him, grinning awkwardly, braces gleaming in the sun, John Bender begins to panic.

Because he has just seen someone else approaching him with much more confidence and haste than poor book-laden Brian Johnson.

It's his friend Jimmy Steiveson all decked out in black complete with ear-spike and Metallica shirt.

 _Fuck. I can't do this._

If it was anyone but fucking Brian Johnson.

Bender would have talked to any of the others without batting an eye, that is the awful truth. Allison is weird, sure, but dark, too. She's a weirdo who would fit right in to Bender's Band of Misfits (name pending). Claire is beautiful and popular and once his friends see that she isn't a total stuck-up bitch (although to be perfectly frank, even John isn't completely convinced of this fact) they would come around to embracing her. And Andy, even though in John's group of friends he is viewed as a total douche, is popular and it doesn't take a genius to tell that his heart is in the right place.

 _Shit, I need to take it easy on the cliches or I might turn into fucking Brian Johnson._

Brian Johnson. Coming at him from the right, looking hopeful.

Jimmy Steiveson, closing in on him from the left, looking like a criminal.

 _Be the better person, Bender._

But it's just so much easier to blow someone off.

"Jimmy. Smoke with me in the back?"

Who said John Bender is a good person, anyways?

John Bender barely has time to feel something inside him collapse at the look on Brian Johnson's face before he turns to follow Jimmy to the back of the school for a before first period smoke.

Guess his dad is right.

 _Lying, no-good, fucking_ _ **disappointment**_ _._


	7. Claire Is Always Right

Breakfast at the Standish house on Monday morning turns out to be a crowded affair. Mr. and Mrs. Standish insist on eating breakfast together even though Claire can't remember the last time they did that – probably because they had never done it before. Mrs. Standish flips pancakes while Mr. Standish reads the _Chicago Tribune_ as he absent-mindedly sips at his coffee mug. Like a perfect little suburban family.

"I like that shirt you've got on today, sweetie. It's nice, isn't it, Harold?" Mrs. Standish tries, sitting down at the head of the table finally.

"Yes, very nice," her father grumbles, "Is that silk?"

"Linen, daddy."

"Ah."

Judging from her father's clipped, robotic tone, Claire can perfectly visualize the scene that must have transpired last night before her mother and father went to sleep.

" _Did you see him, Harold? Walking in here like he owned the place. I mean, the nerve!"_

 _"He's just a kid, Mildred. And, to be honest, I don't see how this could possibly last. He doesn't look like he runs in Claire's crowd at all. She's probably trying to be a little rebellious right now. It's only natural. But it can't last. The whole thing'll blow over in a couple days, a week tops, trust me."_

 _"It's not a matter of trust, Harold! We're talking about our daughter here! Don't you care? Don't you care that she's associating herself with someone like that? He was wearing an_ _ **earring**_ _for Christ's sake! He probably has tattoos, too. Who knows what they do together! I only dread to think!"_

 _"Oh, Mildred, come on. Stop overreacting."_

 _"I'm_ _ **not**_ _overreacting! The bottom line is this – do you want a boy like... a boy like_ _ **that**_ _dating, god forbid,_ _ **touching**_ _our daughter?"_

That is definitely how her mother had temporarily forced her father onto her side. It's touching, almost, to see her parents united under a common flag. It's the first time this has happened in years.

Guess this morning is full of first-time-in-a-long-time's.

"Well, this was a delicious breakfast, mom, but I should really get going," Claire smiles as sweetly as possibly, hoping to get out of there with no more discussion.

"Already? Isn't it a bit early?"

Perfect set-up. Thanks a bunch, mom.

"Yeah, I'm supposed to meet someone early..."

"Is it that boy? John Bender?"

It's almost too easy.

Mrs. Standish's eyes bulge out of her head while Mr. Standish shifts uncomfortably in his chair.

"Yeah. Mom, stop looking at me like that, it's not a big deal..."

"Sweetie, this is a big deal to us," Mildred Standish takes Claire's hand dramatically, "Your father and I are, well, more than a little bit concerned about your... choice. I mean, don't you want someone more-"

"Bourgeois?"

" _Civilized_?"

Claire shrugs, "John's perfectly civilized, thanks very much."

"Oh, come on, Claire. He's hardly like us, is he? Where does he live?"

Claire feels herself blushing involuntarily. She tries to imagine where John Bender might live. In a trailer, perhaps? Or a shoe? Or maybe he bucks all expectations and actually lives in a very nice house two blocks away from Claire.

"What does it matter?"

But Claire knows that where you live in Shermer is tantamount to a bank account statement to predicting how much money you have.

"Listen, Claire, your father and I just want to make sure that you're being careful," Mrs. Standish eyes her husband with a look that is clearly meant to prompt him into saying something to back her up, "God forbid that something happens – and with that kind of people you can never really tell, Claire..."

"Mom, stop it! You're being so elitist!"

"Don't blame this all on me, Claire," her mother's voice begins to rise to pitch levels that she only reaches under severe stress and agony at her point not coming across right, "Your father and I are both concerned. We agree that those kinds of people are not to be trusted."

" _Seriously?_ "

Spotting the look of outrage on Claire's face, her father feels the need to chime in with that tone of self-righteousness that most aggravates Claire.

"Now, don't go putting words in my mouth, Mildred!"

"Don't you dare back out of this one, Harold! We discussed this last night."

"Claire, sweetie, I never said that those kinds of people are not to be trusted."

"Great! Now _I'm_ the bad guy for wanting our daughter to be safe and not end up murdered in a ditch somewhere!"

"Now, come off it, Mildred!"

"I've got to get going. See you later," Claire says.

And as her parents continue to bicker at each other over every stupid little thing, they barely notice their own daughter catching a ride to school with Sarah.

Had they noticed, they wold have been thrilled. Sarah is the kind of upper-crust, preppy, daddy's girl that Claire should be associating herself with in their eyes. This is one of the other few things that they both agree on.

"Hey, Sarah," Claire smiles as she hops into the red Mustang.

"Hey," Sarah barely glances her over, "Nice blouse. I like that color on you."

The second compliment today. Pink must really be her color. Claire can't quite tell if Sarah is being sincere or sarcastic which, as it turns out, can be a very fine line. She decides to assume the best of people, at least today.

"Thanks."

On any other day, this would have been a very big deal. Claire Standish finally moving up to the highest rungs of the social ladders via bomb-shell extraordinaire Sarah Westerman. Claire had spent way too much time fantasizing what that would be like. She would drive up to the school with Sarah Westerman. Everybody would stare as they climbed out of the Ferrari (in her imagination, Sarah drove a Ferrari). Their hair and makeup would be perfect, their clothes would flutter in the breeze, as if they were in a modeling shoot. And then a whole world of opportunities would open up to Claire. Ultimate popularity brings ultimate influence.

And now it was actually happening. Her and Sarah conversing, making early morning small talk. And instead of paying attention, all Claire can do is re-play the scene from last night in her head. The thought of that gleam of mischief in John Bender's eyes when he looked at her makes her dizzy.

"Claire?"

Sarah's voice snaps Claire back to reality. They are pulling up to the school already.

"Are you okay? You seem a little... off today."

"Me? Yeah, I'm fine."

"Detention must've gotten to you. Sucks that you had to throw away an entire Saturday like that. It must've been _so_ hard for you," Sarah looks at Claire with challenging eyes.

The two look at each other. Sarah's eyes are dark and mocking and Claire racks her brain for the right thing to say. She could tell the truth. She could prove everyone wrong. But right now there is too much at stake and it's not the right time.

"It was okay. I just don't want it to happen again."

Apparently satisfied by Claire's answer, Sarah gets out of the car and starts walking toward the Shermer High School building. Can she hear Claire's heart nearly pounding out of her chest as she scours the parking lot for familiar faces? She's looking for four faces in particular, but one face particularly above all...

People come up to them and Claire feels for the first time what it could be like to have the entire school in her hand. Boys throw themselves at Sarah even before they get into the building and then worse once they do. Girls flock around her and begin to talk hysterically, nearly begging for her approval. And Sarah barely deigns many of them with so much as a glance. That is real power at least here at Shermer High School.

Claire follows Sarah inside and to her locker and still there is no sign of any Breakfast Club members. Who will Claire run into first? Brian, maybe? She would say hi to him and he would blush because she will have proved him wrong. Or maybe she'll run into John Bender first. He would look at her with a challenge etched on his face and she would go over there and in front of all his friends and all of hers, she would smile at him and flirt with him and leave him with his jaw hanging open, that look on his face, just like the time when she had kissed him on the neck.

Sarah finally arrives at her locker and several girls, some that Claire knows and some that she doesn't, gather around. They are in the middle of recounting the details of their spoiled, uneventful weekends (nothing has changed for _them_ ) when one of the girls, Marsha, stops and wrinkles her nose.

"What is it, Marsha?"  
"Major weirdo alert at two o'clock," Marsha says, not even bothering to be subtle when she jerks her head to the right.

Claire's heart drops. Standing just a few lockers away, in all her eyeliner-wearing, converse-rocking glory is Allison. This looks nothing like the Allison Claire had last seen departing from Shermer High on Saturday. That had been a re-energized girl, a girl who dared bare her face to the world and hold a jock that was way out of her league on her arm. No, she is very much back to the old Allison. The Allison that told crazy stories about sex and shrinks and used dandruff as an ingredient in her drawings. In other words, this is the kind of Allison that has no chance in a million years to ever get accepted by her friends.

It barely registers in Claire's mind that this is the moment she's been looking forward to ever since John Bender glared at her and yelled in her face that she was a terrible person for thinking that everything would go exactly back to way it always was on Monday morning.

 _It's a burden, always being right._

"Look at her hair."

"I mean, ew, right? Do you think it's a wig?"

"Yeah, a Morticia wig with the ends hacked off!"

"And what's with the eyeliner? Is she a goth, or something?"

"Do you think she's one of those people that cuts herself? I bet she is!"

Claire sees Allison's shoulders tense as she sifts through the contents of her locker for way too long. That's when Claire registers the lull in conversation. She looks up. Eight pairs of eyes are locked on her. They all blink at her at once. They are expectant eyes, waiting for her to take a swing, too. Like kids around a pinata, if the pinata were a human being.

The words come out of mouth out of sheer reflex.

"It's like she doesn't even need a Halloween costume, she's all ready to go!"

The girls laugh. Sarah looks at her approvingly and slams her locker. Claire and the girls follow her to class. Just like the had done on Friday. Just like they will do tomorrow. Not a single fucking thing has changed.  
 _It's a burden always being right._


End file.
